medieval historian, archaeologist and writer

Month: October 2013

It is rare to encounter an album that has the potential to alter the trajectory of a genre.

The previous full-length release from Atlantean Kodex – The Golden Bough – was remarkable for its intellectual depth. The title of that record refers to Sir James Frazer’s monumental work of comparative mythology and anthropology of the same name. Published between 1890 and 1915, the final edition ran to twelve volumes. Frazer’s work is a remarkable compilation that – alongside the theories of Marija Gimbutas and Margaret Murray – laid the groundwork for the modern pagan movement, the tropes of folk horror and much of the public understanding of the roots of ancient folk practice. Any time that reference is made to sacrificial kings or ancient fertility rites, the ghost of Frazer is hovering somewhere nearby. It is also true that Frazer’s theories have been utterly discredited by several generations of scholars. As long ago as 1970, William Chaney’s book Sacral Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England – a work that drew heavy inspiration from Frazerian ideas – was generally ridiculed (unfairly in many cases; it contains a number of fascinating ideas even though the overall thesis is undoubtedly incredible).

Atlantean Kodex acknowledged this sullied academic legacy in the sleeve notes to The Golden Bough, but asked the listener to accept the Frazerian legend as a thought-experiment; by leaving rational objections behind, and embracing the dark dream of Europe’s mythic past, the listener was offered the opportunity to reconnect with some of the magic that saturates the heritage of the West. Most interestingly, AK began to weave into this the rich fabric the threads of Christian theology and superstition that have to a great extent defined European culture. The song Temple of Katholic Magic was the first concrete expression of this idea and evokes to extraordinary effect the smell of incense in dark crypts and the splash of coloured light through stained glass windows. This theme is elaborated on with The White Goddess, an album which builds in every way on the foundations of its predecessor.

The title derives from the poet Robert Graves’ famous book of the same name. Like Frazer, to whom Graves was enormously indebted, Graves’ ideas have been rejected as untenable fantasy – regardless of their value as poetry – by modern scholars. Once again, however, AK use the metaphor of the White Goddess as a means of entering into a semi-allegorical exploration of death and rebirth as the unifying European myth. In particular, the place of Christianity within the confluence of ancient European beliefs and practices is made prominent. Graves felt that he was building on what Frazer had left unsaid, stating explicitly that “[w]hat he [Frazer] was saying-not-saying was that Christian legend, dogma and ritual are the refinement of a great body of primitive and even barbarous beliefs, and that almost the only original element in Christianity is the personality of Jesus.” Atlantean Kodex draw on this idea more or less directly at various points throughout The White Goddess, particularly on Sol Invictus , a mighty hymn to the Winter Solstice:

It is particularly important and surprising because, despite the darker emphasis of this album compared to its precursor, it is an inherently optimistic and inclusive vision that AK set out here. Beauty, optimism, melancholy, death, glory, majesty and mystery all have their place on The White Goddess. It is an approach that reveals how myopic and creatively bankrupt much heavy metal that treats of mythological themes has become. It is a fact that the rich seams of myth, history and folklore that AK exploit have generally only been explored in any depth by Black Metal artists, some of whom have responded to this material in profound and sophisticated ways (Enslaved, Negura Bunget, Primordial). But it is also undeniable that Black Metal is defined by a negativity that is deeply limiting in its emotional range and, therefore, damaging to its artistic potential in the long-term. And it is also true that the subject matter has too easily been perverted by this negativity to a poisonous racial nationalism that has compromised otherwise outstanding musical projects (Burzum, Walknut, Nokturnal Mortem).

Consider these sentiments expressed by guitarist Manuel Trummer in 2010 in an interview for the website Metal Crypt:

“Sargon [Interviewer]: Your lyrics seem to promote a Pan-European Renaissance and revival. While obviously not specific, this theme does have a lot of resonance today, when many people feel European culture is threatened by immigration and cultural diffusion. Do you agree with that sentiment?

Manuel: No, I don’t. The history of Europe is a history of immigration. Starting with the stone-age tribes, the peoples of the bronze-age, the indo-european peoples like the Celts and later the Slavs and Teutons, the Romans of course – Europe has always been a melting pot of different peoples. So where do you draw the line? Immigration is nothing new, but something quite natural. Europe will only profit from immigration as its culture will become even more diverse, rich and plentiful. But: people may lose orientation in this new plurality. That’s why we need to look to our roots. We need traditions to stabilize our lives in these fast-moving times, something to cling to when all around you is on the move. And we need education, we need to teach the younger generation where there roots are. If we forget who we are and where we came from, we will have serious problems pretty soon. It’s not about which nation or which ethnic group is “superior”. It’s about accepting the differences between the various cultures living in Europe and learning how to live with them in a peaceful, civilized and tolerant manner. By heeding these classic virtues of Europe originating in the ancient Greek democracies, we can also make sure that there’s no space for religious fanaticism, stonings of young girls, discrimination or war-mongering like in other regions of the world.”

A Black Metal artist, constrained by the restrictive parameters of the genre, would rarely if ever feel able to express sentiments like these regardless of personal conviction. Those fiercely policed boundaries are one reason why, despite infantile claims to ‘trueness’, much of the Black Metal pose, as embodied by Euronymous and those who followed, is dishonest and self-deluding. To encounter a musician inspired by ancient European mythology and folklore who can speak intelligently and positively about immigration and tolerance is to hear a fresh breeze in the trees, a cool wind blowing from the Bavarian Alps.

I don’t wish to write a formal review of the contents of the record. Plenty of others have already done so, and a trailer for the album can be viewed here:

The points of reference are still evident (Manowar, Bathory, Solstice), but increased maturity and confidence mean that this release establishes the AK sound as unique and unfettered. Each of the five long songs is artistically distinct, each offering a different emotional perspective on the themes of the album. There is no superfluous material, not a second that has not been thought over and crafted to reflect the band’s vision. The same care extends to the visual presentation. Created by artist Ben Harff, the fully illuminated and hand-drawn booklet is a beautifully crafted artwork in its own right. This is artwork that enriches the music it illustrates in a way that is rarely attempted and almost never achieved.

The White Goddess redefines what traditional heavy metal – Epic Metal – can be. It has the potential to do for that genre what In the Nightside Eclipse did for Black Metal, resetting musical, lyrical, aesthetic, intellectual and emotional boundaries. And yet, in every one of these dimensions it remains inescapably and unmistakeably ‘Heavy Metal’. Unlike the post-black-metal phenomenon – whose pioneers have either systematically deconstructed their heavy metal identities out of existence (Alcest), or been left with a rump of heavy metal elements that are at best obsolete and at worst irritating (Agalloch) – Atlantean Kodex have managed with The White Goddess, just as Emperor did with Nightside, to up the atmospheric intensity without changing the game. This is not to say that this shift hasn’t been coming. Bands have been taking their inspiration from early Manowar and Bathory for some time, with increasingly sophisticated imagery – Doomsword, Wotan, Crom, Grand Magus. UK based Solstice have been particularly important for Atlantean Kodex both in sound and in thematic content. The album New Iron Age, in particular, is an overlooked classic that should be recognised as a seminal moment in defining a new Epic Metal. Newly released material is promising. Solstice, however, have proved themselves too erratic, too eccentric and too unproductive to claim the crown for themselves. It is their protégé – Atlantean Kodex – that have pulled together all the threads of this burgeoning scene and crafted an epoch-making release. It is, moreover, an eloquent response to all those who decry traditional heavy metal as crude, naive, laughable and riddled with pubescent fantasies of big muscly guys and their equally anatomically improbable women-folk.

This is Heavy Metal for grown-ups; the dawn of a New Iron Age is breaking.

On one of the first days of October I went walking with my wife. I found my first conker of the year, with the beautiful patina and texture of newborn wood. It’s already wrinkled, like a hard shiny prune. After the walk I went shopping and bought a small collection of objects. I hadn’t intended them to be a collection, but when I looked at them together I was struck how my emotional response to the season was reflected in the things I had chosen. The warm, rich, smoked flavours of Beavertown’s Smog Rocket is full of the scent of bonfires and leaf litter.

Of course, mushrooms are a seasonal crop, so a mushroom themed notebook is perfectly appropriate for this time of year.

Autumn has always felt magical, partly because my birthday falls in October, but also because of other festivals – All Hallows’ and Guy Fawkes’ – and, especially, the build up to Christmas. Magical worlds feel closer, almost tangible, and the sights and smells of the season open seductive little windows to fantasy and fairy tale. Toadstools are very much a part of the mental furniture of fairy story. Sarah Maitland described this quality of fungi beautifully in her book Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of our Forests and Fairytales:

“[fungi is a] phenomenon of the forests […] which can give me the same strange shiver of fear as the dream of wolves and as the fairy stories themselves, a sense of being in the presence of something eerie.” (p. 211)

“When you come upon fungi in the woods they have a magical otherworldly appearance, enhanced by the improbable variety of forms and colours: fungi like jelly, like coral, like brains, like tongues flickering out of alder cones, and even, with the weird earthstars (Geastraceae), like aliens from space.” (p.212)

The word toadstool is particularly pregnant with images of the fairy realm, as are many of the extraordinary folkloric names of fungi, names that have welled up from porous seams of folklore buried deep below: Wood Hedgehog, Velvet Brittlegill, Dead Man’s Finger…

Ted Hughes has made an impact on my life in many ways. I read his poetry as a child, and the story The Iron Man had a profound effect on me when I was young. I was so enthralled by it that I made my own audio book version, sitting alone in my bedroom for hours, reading it out into the microphone of a cheap tape recorder. Why on earth I should have done such a thing is lost in time – perhaps by sounding it out I felt I could inhabit the story more profoundly than by simply reading it. The poems contained in Remains of Elmetare altogether of a darker hue, filled, like Autumn, with images of beauty, sadness and decay:

A wind from the end of the sky

Buffs and curries the grizzly bear-dark pelt

Of long skylines

Browsing in innocence

Through their lasting purple aeons

(Heather, 8-12)

The first edition of this volume of poems was conceived as a collaboration with the photographer Fay Godwin: her beautiful black and white images made a subtle counterpoint to Hughes’ dark and sometimes difficult text, sometimes softening, sometimes alleviating the bleakness of the words.

Shorn of those images the poems, though they lose none of their power and artistry, feel harsher and more alienating at times than they should. A reprint of the collection as it was originally conceived would be most welcome.